


Storybeats

by AKAFishAKA



Series: Linked Relations [6]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst and Feels, Bonding, Linked Universe (Legend of Zelda), gosh this took a ton of time but i'm happy with it, light injury, there's a fight scene in chapter two i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:00:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25176547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AKAFishAKA/pseuds/AKAFishAKA
Summary: Some fights result in some injuries and, thus, some bonding conversations in the group.Or, how the past affects your needs in the present.
Relationships: Four & Warriors (Linked Universe), Sky & Wild (Linked Universe)
Series: Linked Relations [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1517579
Comments: 20
Kudos: 328





	1. Then You Know What I’m Going to Say

Warriors watched as a rivulet of blood slowly dripped into the pond they’d all decided to camp at. The bandages he’d wrapped around his leg had done little to stem the flow. He found he didn’t much care about his lackluster bandaging job. They’d, hardly fifteen minutes ago, come through a portal into Legend’s world (not his Hyrule, he’d specified, but far, far south), and run into a group of moblins. He’d tried to quickly read the situation and had created a succinct battle plan which, sadly, did not work out well in the slightest. Because of his plan, the group was hurt. That was a mistake he hadn’t been able to afford ever since he first was promoted to Captain, and it wasn’t a mistake he could afford to happen now, with them. They deserved more than a stupid mistakes from him, they deserved perfection-

Warriors was so caught up in his thoughts that he’d hardly noticed when Four walked over and sat next to him. He noticed, obviously, he’d been training himself to sleep lightly since he was ten, at this point only people with Sheikah stealth training could surprise him (aka Impa and Zelda). Point was that Four had almost managed to walk up to him unnoticed because of how distracted he was. Weak, he huffed. He was losing his edge; he needed to go back into training.

“Hey,” Four said. Warriors glanced at the smallest hero. A bandage was wrapped around his forehead. Great, another person his plan had failed. Just what he wanted to see.

“Hello,” Warriors responded flatly, before returning his gaze to the pond. The sun was only just beginning to set. It looked much too pretty for his current mood.

“I’ve been told to tell you that dinner will be ready in about forty five minutes.”

“And?” Warriors sighed apathetically.

Four looked over at him, his expression hard. “ _ And _ the group’s doing fine. Wind’s up and acting peppy, Legend’s complaining like normal so his arm can’t be  _ that  _ broken, and Hyrule insists that Time will wake up soon as well, and I sure hope he does since the wanderer needs a power nap and refuses to take one until everyone is conscious. In other words, I’m here to fetch you.”

Warriors snorted. “And who volunteered you for this endeavor?”

“ _ I _ volunteered myself.”

“Did you,” Warriors droned.

“I did,” Four affirmed, turning his body to face Warriors completely. “First of all, someone needs to wrap your leg up.”

“Oh, you don’t trust me to do even that myself now?” Warriors accused.

“In the mood you’re currently in?” Four rolled his eyes. “Your bandage job is already dripping blood. Now turn yourself towards me so I can actually bandage you up.”

“Just do it from there.”

Four glanced at Warriors’ legs resting on a rock a bit into the water. “I can’t reach that far without getting wet and I think you know that.”

Warriors met Four’s gaze, which had relaxed from his previous annoyed look into a questioning one, then sighed and shifted his legs from their resting spot above the water.

“Thank you,” Four said as he started to unwrap the soaked bandages.

“So what’s the other reason you’re here?” Warriors asked.

“Hm?” Four glanced up.

“You said that you volunteered to talk to me ‘first of all’ to fix up my leg. What’s your ulterior motive?”

“Your mood. You’re angry and I don't trust the remaining conscious members of the group to do a good job calming you down.”

Warriors thought through the remaining group. “Twilight probably could’ve done it.”

Four thought for a second. “You’re right, but he not only would’ve hated leaving the old man alone, but he’s also the best watchman of all of us. He has a third sense for monsters. It’s better to leave him with the three most injured parties. I just knew that you’re angry at yourself and that you shouldn’t be, and wanted to try and help.”

“What makes you more qualified to calm me down?”

Four shrugged. “I’ve spent a lot of time angry at myself, and I’ve found that the best way to calm down is to talk it out with a third party. For me it was normally Gr- um, Dot.”   


“Dot?”

“Oh, um, my version of Zelda, she likes to be called Dottie.”

Warriors simply nodded as he watched as Four placed the old bandages to the side. Four then pulled a bottle out of a medical kit he’d brought, dousing a bandage with it. “Can’t let this get infected. This is gonna sting.”

Warriors winced as Four placed the bandage onto the long cut on his leg. “No kidding.”

Four started to secure the bandage. “You're not escaping this conversation, by the way.” Warriors frowned, he’d hoped Four had forgotten (he should have known he wouldn’t, Four wasn’t an idiot). “So talk to me,” Four continued. “Why are you so angry?”

Warriors looked back at the pond. “I think you know that answer.”

“Then you know what I’m going to say,” Four insisted. Warriors didn’t look back at him, so Four continued, saying, “Fine. It’s not your fault they got hurt.”

“I came up with the plan that failed.”

“And we all agreed to it! If anyone had thought that it would go wrong, we would have said so.”

“That just makes it worse!” Warriors fumed. “Eight separate world-saving heroes, each chosen by Hylia herself, decided that my plan would work, and it didn’t! I failed all of you.”

“By the same logic, their world-saving knowledge made us as informed in plan making as you were.”   


“That’s not true. You all have fought your battles by yourselves, or with, like, one fairy or a talking boat or some other noncombatant ally. I’ve spent my career commanding armies, strategy should be my strong suit.”

“Then  _ I, _ at least, should’ve caught that the plan wouldn’t have worked.” Four declared.

Warriors turned to look at Four. “I- what do you mean?”

There was a short moment where Warriors watched as Four realized exactly what he’d said out loud to another individual. “I haven’t told you that, have I?”

“No you certainly have not.”

“Well then,” Four started, looking up to the left then right, “my cousins were visiting when Dot got kidnapped the first and second times, so during my second and third adventures they helped me save her and also the country. I was with a small group for most of my adventures. In conclusion,” Four made eye contact with Warriors, “I should also be able to tell when a plan won’t work. This isn’t just your fault.”

Warriors sighed. Four had a point: this group was made up of some of the most competent fighters he’d ever seen, but he still couldn’t quell the gnawing in his stomach. He couldn’t afford to make a mistake when in command. Not everyone could cover a mistake with pure skill, not everyone had allies stronger than a reincarnated god to bail them out, not everyone was chosen by a goddess to save the world (and it’s not like that was ever a guarantee of safety anyways).

“You’re a general in the army.” Warriors started at Four’s statement.

“Captain, Impa’s a higher rank.”

“Whatever. You’ve commanded armies before.”

“Not by myself but yeah, many times.”

“And you’ve won.”   


“Wouldn’t be here if we hadn’t. What are you getting at-”

“Tell me how you won.” Four demanded.

Warriors straightened up, a bit . “Why?”

“You’re the captain of the army and an extremely successful one at that. Your strategy has obviously worked wonders in the past, and we’re going to use that to find out why it isn’t working now.” Warriors started, shocked at the intensity in Four’s gaze. That intensity then faded to embarrassment as Four scratched at the back of his neck. “I also kinda wanna watch.”

“Huh?”

Four smiled, finishing off the new bandage wrappings. “Commanding a whole army is insanely impressive. I’ve never gotten to see that scale of organization and strategy up close. My group was only fo- small, it was small, nothing to that scale.”

Odd way to say that, Warriors thought, but whatever. He looked at Four and smirked. “Throw me that stick.”

“Ooh, I get drawings too?” Four tittered, smirking as he reached over and grabbed a stick. “My lucky day. Fetch.”

Four yeeted the stick into the middle of the lake. Warriors stared as it plopped down a surprisingly far distance away with a small sploosh. “You know,” he conceded, ”I probably deserved that.”

“You did. You were being a dramatic piece of shit.”

Warriors guffawed at Four’s statement. ”Are you learning from Legend?”

“I don’t  _ need  _ to learn from Legend,” Four scoffed. “Though I’ll admit he has some really impressive insults,  _ I _ already had it covered, thank you very much.”

“I can’t believe this. And to think I was going to complement your throwing arm.”

“Apology accepted,” Four smirked. “Here’s another stick.”

“Thanks.” Warriors took the new stick from Four. “And by the way, in my world we don’t call them drawings. We call them battle plans.” 

Four’s impish demeanor broke down into giggles as Warriors prepped the ground for his map. In the back of his mind, he knew this was all part of Four’s plan to calm him down. Warriors was going to take this plan and use it in the future, because it worked.

Warriors drew a box on the ground. “Let’s get some terminology out of the way. This box is a keep, you can tell them from paths since they’ll be squares. X’s represent enemy keeps, O’s are allied keeps. Squadrons are numbers while important people will be represented by the first letter of their name, except for me, there’s two L’s, I’ll use P to represent my fairy friend Proxi who was with me at the time.” Four nodded along. “Ok, so this was when we were searching for the Princess, since she was missing, though she wasn’t really missing, she’d rejoined us in disguise like 5 hours beforehand.”

“What type of disguise?” Four asked. “It must’ve been a great disguise.”

“It was a new outfit and weapon.” 

“Did she not even change her hair?”

“Nope.” Four just looked at him, disappointed. “Listen, the first thing she said to us may have been ‘the princess isn’t dead’ but give me a break, I’d been promoted from new soldier to Chosen Hero of the Realm like four days before and was panicking, AND the tree village we passed by the day after we met her was being overrun by monsters; we had different priorities.”

“That’s a big mood, I forgive you,” Four said.

“Thank you. Anyways,” Warriors continued as he finished the rather complicated map, “We were coming to this area due to a rebellion against the invading dark forces led by a mysterious woman we hoped was Zelda. We get there and Lana appears, she’s a time witch and her other evil corrupted-by-Ganon half was leading the dark forces. She doesn’t pursue her crush on me and is thus a great friend, but she hadn’t told us her whole story at the time, making her yet another mysterious woman that showed up to help fight this war. You got all that?”

“That’s a lot, but yeah, except did you say yet  _ another _ mysterious woman?” Four asked in disbelief.

“Yeah, it started just with Impa and I, then Sheik and Lana showed up, and it kinda turned into a theme once the timelines got merged. When I defeated Ganon my sister showed up and was like ‘introduce me to your new friends’ and I did and she had a field day making fun of my ‘harem plus one singular Goron.’ The problem is that she has a point, but I don’t know how it happened; I’d only visited one of the 3 time periods so I didn’t even realize until we called for backup and out came four women and one Goron- hey, stop laughing!”

Four clamped his hands over his mouth to stop the laughing, a few giggles still escaping. “Warriors’ harem...hehehehehehehehehe... I’m sorry, that’s hilarious, who said that, your sister?”

“My sister, yeah,” Warriors said, unamused.

“I need to tell her she’s great, remind me… gosh…” Four dissolved into giggles again.

“Do you want to see my strategies or do you want to laugh yourself to sleep?”

Four smiled, shook his head, and looked back at Warriors. “I’m good, you can continue.”

“Ok. So after Lana showed up, we actually started fighting. Our troops started over on this corner, and Lana’s had taken up the Great Deku Tree dead in the middle. I sent squadrons one and two, led by Impa, straight north to meet up with Lana, who was a bit ahead, then sent squad three up the middle to clear a path forwards then rendezvous with them. I- I’m just gonna refer to the squadrons by their number now, ok?”

“Sounds good.”

“Great. I was going to go with four through six to take this lower keep, but I had to go find a bow instead to take care of the poisonous deku babas, so Sheik managed them while I grabbed the bow from a hidden tree branch and took out the babas, which were here, here, here, here and here.” Warriors pointed to where the enemies were rather than drawing them. “Had to make sure the soldiers didn’t wander into the poison, so I had three hold up a bit short.

“The goal once the way forward was cleared was to all meet up at the Great Deku Tree, but the commanding officer of the monsters, a demon named Wizzro, this really creepy thing that’s eye turned into a mouth and tended to give me bad nightmares, knew that and sent gibdos to flank and attack the soldiers resting at the tree. I had one through three go north with Lana and Impa to take the keep there, with Impa going ahead to take out the gibdos with a special unit as backup, leaving Lana in the keep. Three went out east and held this path here after Impa had succeeded, while one and two eventually followed Impa to secure this mess of paths. I took Sheik and four through six to take this keep and defeat the gibdos. Lana made it to the tree and reunited with her troops, of which she had four more squadrons, which was great, as I was able to leave four and five near this keep to prepare for a counter attack and take six to help support Lana and the northern side, as it’s more complicated layout made it harder to defend. Are you following, Four?”

Four didn’t look up from the map. “You basically split up to cover both paths, makes sense. Why’d they all camp in the middle rather than a side; it’s easier to get surrounded there?”

“The Great Deku Tree is sacred.”

“Ah.”

“That’s why Wizzro set it on fire.”

“Oh no!”

“Yeah, that was bad. Luckily, some of Lana’s troops were priests to the Great Fairy and knew that her shrine was up here,” Warriors continued, pointing to the top left corner of the map. “I took Sheik and a small crew of soldiers Impa chose, she had more experience and knew who would be good for this, on a solo mission to ask her for help. Luckily, the evil forces didn’t open the remaining keeps, so we only had to fight forces already out. It was tough, but we made it to the fountain and the Great Fairy caused a rainstorm to put out the fire on the promise of paying her back later.”

“Did you?”

“Yes.” Four raised an eyebrow. “It was bad. I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Ah, sorry.”

“It’s fine, you didn’t know. Anyways, we stopped the fire but Wizzro saw then sent forces towards the Deku Tree from three separate locations. We had ten squadrons. I sent one through three up north, with Impa, and had three focus more on that fort there on the right, and two focus on the left one, with one as support as Impa saw fit. Kept five at the tree just in case, sent four down and around, six right and down to meet four, defeat the monsters, then take the lower east keep, then seven through ten straight, forwards to take that keep and defeat those two heads. Lana went with seven through ten, Sheik went all the way down to four and six, I headed back to the tree because I had a real bad feeling about this situation.”

“I mean the sacred tree did just catch on fire.”

“Yeah, wasn’t a great scenario, and I was right to go back, a random gibdo showed up in allied territory and I had to deal with it. Impa was convinced Wizzro had info on where the Princess was, so she thoroughly beat his ass, turns out he was up in the top left keep. Now that pissed him off, so he retreated with most of his troops, leaving just a giant arthropod cyclops monster Gohma in the middle of the same keep he was in.”

“Oh, I’ve fought some gohmas before, though they were about my size. They shot fireballs and you had to hit them in the eyes with arrows.”

“The arrow thing is right, I did have to shoot this guy in the eye, but he was like triple my size, so like six times your size smithy,” Warriors winked, (Four  _ glared  _ at him), “and also shot lasers.”

“Rough.”

“I went to help Impa out, but first had to redirect the squadrons to each of the keeps we captured to stop them from being taken over by the final wave of keep saboteurs. Lana and Sheik helped with that. Gohma eventually relocated via large jump to the Great Deku Tree-”

“How do you jump up from here and land in a tree?” Four asked, incredulous.

“I have absolutely no idea. No matter how she got around, by shooting Gohma in the eye after she shot a laser, we were able to beat her and the rest of the dark forces and secure the village. Village was saved, we were really worried about Zelda, and I’m sure Sheik was secretly laughing her ass off.”

Warriors stretched his back and cracked his neck, looking down at the battle plans, which were now extremely messy due to how many times he’d moved all the symbols. “Well, that’s my strategy talk smithy, what do ya think?”

Four hadn’t actually looked up from the battle plans. ”There was a lot in there I didn’t realize at first.” He frowned. “That was bad wording. What I mean is, I didn’t realize how many curveballs you got thrown; I’d figured it was more like you came up with the strategy beforehand and stuck to it, now I see it’s much more reactionary. It all made sense logically too…”

Four bit the inside of his cheek. “Why did you end up keeping squad five at the base?”

Warriors cocked his head. “Backup, in case Wizzro had something up his sleeves. Arms. Whatever he has.”

“That’s not what I meant. I meant why five? Why not four, or ten, or seven or something?”

“Umm… I think I miscounted when I was doing mental planning. I should’ve put four there to keep future assignments more simple.”

“But what makes five different from four?”

“At that point in time four had seven more active soldiers. In addition, four was led by Commander Walburg and five was led by Commander MacDonald.”

“And how are the commanders different?”

Warriors was starting to get stumped. “Commander MacDonald is taller?”

“No, like fighting wise!” Four exclaimed, putting his hands in the air. “Did they prefer different weapons, or use different fighting styles, or command their squadrons in different ways or something? What makes them unique?”

“Well… nothing really. They’re both infantry troops. We had other specialized troops for medical support, ranged attacking, large bomb control and usage, there’s a small equestrian troop for running messages extremely quickly, stuff like that.”

Four nodded in affirmation. “I think that’s it then.”

Warriors blanked. “I’ve forgotten the point of this conversation.”

“It’s why your plans don’t work, you’re used to ordering around stiffly defined rolls rather than nine individuals.”

“...Go on.”

“Like, if you had to assign a group to be support, in the battlefields you’re used to, you can just pick the number that will help you keep track of them later. But with us, who you wanna assign depends on what type of support you need, mid-range is best covered by Legend and his plethora of hoarded shit or Sky with his whip or his bellows-”

“While for ranged support we’d want Wild and Twilight,” Warriors continued, “and it’s not like anyone else is bad with a bow, it's just have you seen them shoot? Twilight can hit a bullseye from a hundred feet away consistently, and Wild can shoot three arrows at once! Not putting them in that roll wastes their talents.”

“But it’s not like that’s their only talent,“ Four insisted. “They’re not just archers. Twilight excels on horseback, has some great one-on-one sword fighting abilities, and can spot an ambush ages before it happens. Meanwhile Wild is incredibly acrobatic, can adapt to different environments and weather conditions on the fly, and can fight monsters three times his size alone with severe limitations. Not even the midrange group should only be midrange, Sky’s an absolutely incredible close range swordsman, and with Legend’s experience he could go front line, full range, or even flank, wherever you need him most at the time! You’re used to ordering around armies like they’re chest pieces with a specific roll, but that doesn’t work with us because we aren't specialized rolls, we’re individual heroes.”

Warriors blinked. The way Four had said that, with such- such panache, left him thinking. He looked back at the map. Even looking at his marking system enforced Four’s words. Labeling the squadrons plain numbers? Keeps with plain letters? Heck, his best friends were reduced to letters; even he, the Hero of Warriors, was just a P drawn in the center of the map with an I and a G.

“Did that sound mad?” Four wondered, mostly to himself, “It wasn’t supposed to sound mad, sometimes we, um, I get real serious and it sounds like I’m mad when it’s really just me trying to give genuine advice.  _ I _ just have to work on that and I am, it’s just not easy-”

“No, you were just passionate,” Warriors assured. “And you’re right. In the army, there’s just too many people to focus on who they really are. Taking that into account while making plans will definitely help their success rate in the future. Thank you.”

“It’s nothing.”

There was a good minute of silence between the two as they stared at the sunset (which seemed to fit the scene much better now).

“Um, seriously though, the battle strategies you just showed? That’s insanely cool. Not everyone can do that.”

“That’s very sweet, Four, though I think anyone could learn how to strategize on the fly with enough time.”

“I don’t think so,” Four murmured, ”at least, not in the way you think.”

Warriors glanced over, “You mean advance high enough to be taught? ‘Cause that was mostly luck, right place right time sorta thing.”

“No, I…” Four shifted to rest his chin on his hand. “I joined the army once.”

“Did you?” Warriors raised his eyebrows, surprised. “I didn’t realize.”

“No one would,” Four admitted, “I don’t exactly mention it. It wasn’t a great time in my life. I was, um 16-ish? 15 and a half? Grampa Smith had retired and moved into town, I was living on my own, I’d saved the world twice at that point. I wasn’t in a great headspace. I was desperate for someone to understand... understand what was going on. Looking back on it, I didn’t understand what was happening. Dot tried really hard to help, but she was dealing with a ton of problems too, and we couldn’t support each other as much as we wanted to, so she suggested I join the army. This was definitely a ploy to get me around more people, but I’d trust her with my life, so I went through with it.

“They would hardly listen to anything I said. Sure I was new, but I’d saved the country twice at that point, you’d think that would count for  _ something _ ! It felt like they threw me into a box and ignored me. They stopped using my name and just yelled at me. I- I’m not just a figurehead, or someone to be ignored. I’m multidimensional! I’m a fully realized creation. Fuck!”

Four shook his head, readjusting his headband. “I hated it. I needed clarity on who I was and instead I felt pushed to the side, which just worsened everything. Vaati escaped like 6 months after I applied and I quit and opened my smithing shop as soon as the world was saved. I still have an open invitation to join though, if, I don’t know, I die and get reincarnated as a different person, but until then, I can’t do it. It’s not that the army’s bad or anything, they’re genuinely nice folks, but I, I just can’t. The fact that you joined and did well and climbed up ranks? It’s astonishing to me. There’s a lot of mental strength there people don’t see when they first meet you. It’s genuinely impressive and I want you to know that.”

Warriors took this all in. “I think you just got unlucky with the advice. The army is a bad place to go for understanding. But I also wasn’t doing that great when I made the decision to join the army. It took what felt like ages for my sister and I to move out of our home to Castle Town, but I joined the army and it worked for me.” Warriors took a deep breath.

“I think, when I joined the army, what I needed wasn’t individuality. What I needed was to be able to go up to someone,  _ anyone _ , say ‘I’m Link Bellares, I’m 18, and I’m from the Rudania region of the Faron province,’ and have them say ‘ok.’ Gosh, Four,” Warriors avowed, “when General Mullins told me my room was number 451 in the Dinraal Bunker and that training started at 6am on Monday and let me go without a single question, I was ecstatic. Before that, no one had- well, I had my sister, but…” Warriors took a deep breath. “The army isn’t perfect and isn’t for everyone. Sometimes it feels like it makes games out of people’s lives, reduces them to pawns on a chessboard. Even as captain I know I offer value as a figurehead, and I struggle with exactly what you were saying before. But they don’t care if you’re a man or a woman or both or neither or anything in between, they don’t care what others say you are, they ask if you can fight and follow instructions and if you say sure then they accept you, and I, I was so desperate, and I thought that if losing a small bit of individuality was all it took to be accepted then I’d take it with open arms and even now I desperately wish that’s all it took for everyone else to have accepted me in the first place.”

“Sometimes you don’t need to be heard,” Four mused, “sometimes you just need a hug and someone to say it’s all gonna be ok.”

“Yes! Yes, exactly. But sometimes you need to be understood instead. Your needs differ depending on your life and circumstances, and you need to be able to cater to that.”

“Definitely.” Four agreed. 

The two sat in silence as the sun finished setting. It- it was really pretty, Warriors thought.

“It’s odd for me to be the one saying this, since I’m the one that came to get you, but thanks for talking this whole thing through with me.” Four smiled.

“Yeah, no, thank you! This, this was nice,” Warriors said. “I don’t get to talk about that with my army friends for, well, obvious reasons.”

“Yeah… I really only talk to Dottie and… no, just her.”

“Well,” Warriors determined, turning fully to Four, “let’s act on this then.”

Four nodded. “What’s the good of a heart to heart if you don’t act on it?”

“Exactly. I want you to call me out.”

“What specifically do you mean?”

“I need to incorporate more of the group’s specific skill sets into the plans I make. If you see that I missed something, tell me. You’ve proven you know the group’s abilities through and through; you demonstrated it just now. I don’t want you to think that just because I’m a captain in the army that you don’t have a voice.”

“I really appreciate that,” Four smiled bashfully, ducking his head to scratch the back of his neck. He then looked up, much more serious. “I’ll support you. And I don’t mean just giving strategy advice. If you need someone to rant at, or bounce ideas off, or anything, just ask for support, I’ll give it.”

“Thank you.” Warriors looked back over the lake. The sun was almost completely set already. That seemed fast. “You said Wild and Sky are scouting?”

“Yup.”

“Shouldn’t they have passed by here already?”

Four paused, looked around, then let out a laugh. ”I had a feeling it was a bad idea to let those two scout, but there wasn’t really a better option.”

“This is a good time to start improving my battle plans,” Warriors pointed out, “what exactly makes them so bad a duo?”

“They both are extremely ready to do insane shit on the daily. It’s much more obvious with Wild, but Sky does jump from like 10,000 feet up regularly, and he’s talked about riding the death minecart in the middle of a desert. Who knows where his line is!”

Warriors frowned. “You’re right. He hides it so well.”

“It’s literally only because he’s also the nicest, most caring person I’ve met in a good long while. The caring takes priority over the crazy.”

“Well then,” Warriors said, getting up, testing his injured leg, then holding a hand out to Four, “let’s go find our gremlins.”


	2. He was pretty lucky to have them at all

Wild stood and stared at the situation in front of him. Sky stood slightly behind him, looking over his shoulder.

“I’m going to assume, since you stopped, that there’s something here on this cliff?” Sky queried.

“See those three big rocks?” Wild asked. Sky murmured his assent. “They’re giant rock monsters.”

“Oh dear,” Sky frowned, moving one of his hands to his side. “Are they on fire also?”

“Ummmm… Doesn’t look it. Also doesn’t look like they’re frozen either.”

“Dandy. Where’s their eye?”

“They don’t have any?”

Sky cocked his head. “So we can hit them anywhere?”

Wild turned away from the clearing to look at Sky. “No, there’s a very specific gemstone on the back of each one you have to hit. Did yours have eyes?”

“Well, it only had one eye. There was also only ever one of them. It was also a lava monster, and it had a mouth and arms with really Hylian-like hands.”

“Did it have legs?”

“It walked on its hands.”

“Oh nooooooooooooo.”

“Yes, that was approximately my reaction.” Sky bit the inside of his cheek. “Though it was also for a variety of other reasons. Should we get backup?”

Wild grimaced. ”The only people able to fight fully right now are Twi and Four, and as much as I adore Four, unless he’s hiding something very damaging up his sleeve, he’s not gonna be much help with the giant stone monsters.”

“You have a point,”Sky worried. “But isn't Hyrule fine?”

“Hyrule gets super tired after every large-scale fight.”

“I mean, so do I, that’s normal.”

“Sky, Sky, Sky, no, Sky, it’s really not.”

“Fighting is tiring!” Sky argued, crossing his arms.

“It’s ‘wow, gotta take a breather’ tiring, not ‘time to sleep without eating’ tiring!”

“I- fine, whatever,” Sky conceded, pouting.

Wild shook his head. “No one else is available since they’re all tending wounds that affect movement and these guys attack by throwing me-sized stones you have to dodge.”

“Oh, we really don’t want anyone to get crushed,” Sky fussed.

“Yeah,” Wild sighed. He looked back at the cliff. Where had Legend said they were? That’s right, the middle of nowhere. Perfect.

“I have a plan.”

“Oh, goodie! What is it?”

“We blow up the cliffside so they all fall off.”

Sky looked over at the cliff, both hands on his hips. Yeah, Wild shouldn’t have even bothered suggesting this; there was no way Sky was going to-

“Sounds great!”

“Okay- wait what?”

“It’s not gonna work with just your two bombs though. Luckily, my bomb bag is full! Twenty five bombs should be plenty, right?”

“What?”  


“I’m sorry, I don’t understand?”  


“You agreed to my plan?”

“Yes? It’s feasible with the amount of explosives on us right now and is certainly faster than fighting them all at the same time normally.” Wild noted that Sky did not say safer, which he would have thought would be higher on Sky’s priority list. Sky held out his bomb bag. “Here’s all my bombs. I figure you’re more comfortable with collapsing cliff sides, so I can play distraction while you set it up. Should there be a signal for when I need to not be on the cliff, or…?”

“You know what? Yeah, let’s go, let’s do this. I’ll whistle before I set the bombs off.”

“If you set them off from the opposite side I’m on I’ll have more time to get back to safety.” 

“Good idea! This is the best plan we’ve ever had.”

Sky gave Wild two thumbs up. “On the count of three?”

“Fuck yeah! One, t-”

“Three!” And Sky was gone. Wild was shocked. That was a clever trick. He should use it on Twilight; he’d hate it.

Wild watched Sky take off, circling around the first Stone Talus and making it to the secondjust as the first started to get up. For someone so sleepy all of the time, Sky could be fast. But enough about Sky (as much as Wild wanted to wax poetic about all his friends all the time), Wild had to actually plant this trap so Sky didn’t get crushed. As a wise person had said about a minute ago, ‘oh, we really don’t want anyone to get crushed.’

Wild carefully placed Sky’s first bomb at the edge of the cliff. He’d never actually dealt with real bombs before, and he’d always assumed they were some sort of less advanced technology. He hadn’t assumed they were plants. He found out now that they were, in fact, plants. If he didn’t use them all, he’d have to see if they were edible. Since it was a plant (Hyrule would adore that, Wild thought), signs pointed to yes. 

The three talus had fully awakened, and Wild kept an eye on them in case something went wrong. He could still see the weak points of the trio, meaning they hadn’t even noticed him yet and also had hardly moved. Sky was showing absolutely no fear though, and skillfully darted around their feet like they were normal pillars and not evil rock monsters. He was doing it so well it was almost like he’d done it before (not that Wild would know what that looked like since none of the talus were close enough to warrant the experiment), but Sky always acted with the confidence of someone who’s done everything before, so who really knew.

It was about when Wild got two thirds of the bombs down where the plan started to fall apart. If Wild had to blame something, it would be the shards of rock scattered everywhere (and also that he’d never done this before and was really flying by the seat of his pants, but he digressed). Wild watched, still placing bombs, as Sky went to stop short but planted his back foot directly on one of rocks littering the battlefield. He went down with a yelp (oh, that did not look good at all, oh no), and Wild, now done with the bombs, took out his bomb arrows and shot one directly into the weak point of the talus aiming to crush Sky.

At this point the plan really started to fall apart. Sure, the bomb arrow had stunned the talus that was going to crush Sky (he really didn’t want him to get crushed), but it had caused the other two to turn directly towards him. As they both wound up to throw rocks at Wild, he realized that, in fact, he also really didn’t want to get crushed.

Wild shifted his feet and watched as both talus threw boulders at him. As they flew towards him, Wild spotted Sky working his way back to the left, towards the other side of the clifftop. Then Wild backflipped and shot a set of bomb arrows at the boulders.

In the approximate two seconds of Wild Time™ it took for him to land (which was a thing that only happened to him, Wild had been told by the Princess, and was much slower than normal, actual time), Wild realized exactly what he’d done wrong. The bomb arrows were going to destroy the boulders coming at him just fine. They also were going to blow up the bombs he’d set up to destroy the cliff Sky was still on.

Wild landed, let out a loud whistle, and the bombs started to go off. At this point what the talus did was neither important nor seen over the curtain of smoke and dust (these bombs threw up a ton more smoke than normal, probably because they were plants) as Wild sprinted along the line of bombs to reach where Sky was making a beeline. Wild reached it before Sky, surprising him for only a moment before he spotted Sky’s odd gait (that fall must’ve _really_ messed up his ankle).

“You have to stop!” Wild hollered over the bombs. “You need to let the bombs go off before you cross!”

“What? I can’t hear you over the bombs going off- oh wait I get it!” Sky stopped short (directly on his screwed ankle, and _oof_ , yeah, Wild could see that it was extremely broken, that must’ve hurt) as the bombs went off between them.

This is where the largest flaw in the plan reared its head. In both Sky and Wild’s heads, the order of events went like this: Sky distracts the talus, Wild places the bombs, Wild tells Sky he’s blowing up the bombs, Wild blows up the bombs, Sky runs back to safety, then all three talus fall along with the cliff to their deaths. What both Sky and Wild had failed to realize was that gravity did not, in fact, wait for someone to get to safety before working. This seemed like a stupid assumption until you realized both parties spent most of their time using various gliding instruments, thus ignoring gravity 90% of the time.

The end result of this was that when the dust cleared enough so Wild could see through it, Sky was a solid two feet lower than before and sprinting towards him.

“I got you!” Wild cried, diving forwards and grabbing Sky's outstretched hand. He landed hard on the ground, then braced as he caught Sky’s full weight as well. Sky reached his other arm up to grab Wild’s two-handed grip, breathing hard, a silent reassurance that he was there and fine. They both looked down to see the crumbled remains of the cliff and talus finished settling a long ways below.

Sky tsked before looking back up at Wild. “Well, all things considered, I’d say that plan went pretty spiffingly, don’t you think?”

Wild broke into a grin. “Spiffingly?” he asked, starting to pull Sky back up to a safer location. “Is spiffingly even a word?”

“Well, _I_ think it is,” Sky pouted, still panting a bit, and helped Wild pull himself up. He tested his ankle a bit (boy oh boy, Wild grimaced, that was _broken_ ), still catching his breath. “Well, we should probably get back.”

“What?”

“To the rest of the group?” Sky clarified, breathless.

“I can’t believe _I_ have to say this, but we need a break,” Wild decided, face scrunched up, “your ankle needs at least a small break.”

“It’s fine, it’s not that sprained.”

“Sky, I cannot see your ankles because of your boots and I can tell that your right one is swollen. That ankle is broken, nevermind sprained. You are taking a break.”

Sky yawned. “You sound like the rancher.”

“Well, if you can’t beat ‘em…” Wild sighed, pulling out some white chu chu jelly to start chilling the injury.

“What are you doing?” Sky cocked his head.  
Wild cocked his head right back. “Treating your ankle? I’ve mangled my own tons. Teba, my friend, he’s a Rito, he lectured me about it once,” Wild chuckled, “something about ‘being responsible’ and ‘not being able to fly’ and ‘do as I say not as I do’ and the like, so he taught me how to treat them correctly. It’s much easier with snow but this works too.” He then looked at Sky quizzically. “Did no one ever try to help your injuries?”

“Well, they couldn’t… she wouldn’t bother… would’ve, but she’s incorporeal… don't think any of them have ankles...” Sky murmured almost unintelligibly (just almost, and that train of thought worried Wild a good bit), before explaining, “There were plenty of people that would’ve, but they all lived up in Skyloft, and I was down on the Surface for most of my adventure,” Wild nodded (why didn’t he go back if he had that much support?) and finished his icing job.

The two sat cliffside for a bit. It was mid sunset now. The perfect time to celebrate a dramatic win against a literal tons worth of enemies.

“Gosh,” Wild sighed to break the silence, “I haven’t been able to do something crazy like that since I joined you all. It’s ‘unsafe’ or something.”

“I’m not sure why they’re such sticklers about that, actually.” Sky mused, blinking rapidly.

“Me neither,” Wild grimaced. He looked over at Sky. ”I wasn't actually expecting you to agree to that plan.”

“Why not? It was fast and it worked.”

“Yeah, but you just seem so put-together, responsible, reasonable. You’re calm.”

“I’ve always been calm, or, at least, calmer, so Zelda says. I- I think it helped. With the whole saving the world thing. Let me take things in without completely panicking.”

“I would have thought that’d also stop you from doing this kind of stunt in the first place,” Wild prompted (he knew when someone had worry on their chest; he’d seen many hold their worry in for the benefit of others, done it himself plenty, and that’s what Sky radiated now). , 

“I mean, originally it did. I didn't want to fight monsters, I just wanted to find Zelda; that was my main goal, more than all the saving the world stuff. It was really exciting at first too, you know. I was scared, real nervous, since Zelda had fallen to the surface and she was and still is my best friend and I care about her a ton. But I’d never seen so many trees! There was a whole new species! They gave me a slingshot, I found this cool item called the beetle in ruins older than anything I’d ever seen-”

“What’s the beetle?”

“Oh,” Sky started, pulling out a small metal contraption that fit on his wrist to show Wild, “it's this tech that I can control via a remote that can grab things and move them around! It’s the coolest little thing,” Sky smiled sadly, putting it away, “and once I got it all I could think of was how much Zelda would love it, and how thrilled she was seeing the surface, and when I got to where they said she was she’d left already.” Wild hadn’t seen Sky deflate like that since- well, actually, ever. “She wasn’t there.”

“She was fine though, right?”

“Yeah, Fi said she’d gone to the shrine in Eldin, so I went to Eldin and got to the shrine and she was there but Impa… Impa was there and she said I was late and that I failed to protect her and if she hadn’t been there Zelda would’ve been captured, and-! A-and she asked if I was angry and I was just tired and scared, and maybe if I hadn’t asked Fi what lava was, or if I hadn’t been scared to slide down the slope to get the key to the temple in front of the shrine, or if I hadn’t looked for a way across the lava that wasn’t balancing and walking on a stone ball, if I hadn’t been grabbed by Scaldera, the rock lava monster I mentioned before, and had to use my potion, maybe I could’ve made it.” 

Sky’s hand shifted back to his side, a motion that suddenly made a lot more sense to Wild (being touched by a fire chuchu hurt like hell, he couldn’t imagine being grabbed by a hand of actual lava), before he continued. “So I did what Impa said. I gathered a shred of courage and faced the trials laid before me and I stopped thinking through my actions. I saw electricity and I ignored how it stung when it hit me. There were stones that transported the area around it 1000 year back in time and I just said ok. I’d never seen a desert before, Wild, and I ignored it all and didn’t sleep and sprinted through Lanayru and I just, just _barely_ made it in time to save them, so I- I just haven’t stopped running since.”

Everything in Wild’s body ached at the idea of just running straight towards a goal with all you had; a throbbing at his very soul telling him no, it’s too much, too much for just you alone to do, but whatever Sky felt (and it wasn’t good, Wild could tell through the pounding; Sky was pulling himself inwards in a way so similar to how he fell apart), it didn’t deter his profession.

“Twilight and Time are always going on about making plans and being safe, as if there was ever time to worry about that. Warriors and Four are better, they can make plans on the battlefield extremely quickly and effectively. I never had that type of skill; all I had was a sword with a map and knowledge that if I stopped everyone- I could hardly even think about it, so I ran into everything head on and stopped blanching at otherwise insane stunts; each moment of pause wasted time where someone could be hurt or killed. The time traveling sand pirate ship didn’t phase me. The woods got flooded and I just swam on. I got hit by a volcano and almost got slowed down, but a friend gave me a gift and I stealth sprinted through an enemy base. Groose once told me that the only way to beat the incarnation of a hatred God itself was to launch myself from a catapult and I was in the catapult before he was done telling me. I stopped questioning because questioning meant hesitating and hesitating meant death.”

Sky was curling in on himself now and the pulsing overtaking Wild’s body _**got it**_ , he _**understood**_ , and he pulled Sky into his embrace (carefully, around the ankle; Sky’s too preoccupied to even react) before speaking. “Sky, that’s so brave, you’re so brave, I couldn’t have ever done that-”

“What? No, you’re wonderful and brave, Wild-”

“Running straight towards my goals though? I tried it, at the very beginning. Following the markers left on my Slate, I went straight to Impa in Kakariko, who told me to go to Purah in Hateno, who said I should get to saving the Divine Beasts. I just decided to go left to right and it was going fine, all my memories I found were just me helping the Princess out, nothing that worrying, but I made it to Gerudo Town and met Riju and she was the Chief and she was- she _is_ a child Sky. She’s hardly a teenager and she was left to lead a whole nation. She’s a really good friend now; I gossip with her all the time, but I think- no, when I first met her, that’s definitely when it all came together for me.”

Sky blinked hard, attempting to clear his eyes (he’s crying now; is Wild crying? He can’t really tell) and curling up closer to Wild. “Wild, what do you…?”

“There’s just so much- so much was depending on me. It was just so, so much, the memories and the people left over from when I failed and every time I thought about it my chest started pounding until I just couldn’t do it anymore!

“It started after I freed Van Naboris for Riju, when I found my next memory, the one where Zelda told me she hated me. It felt like everything compressed in one me all at once. So I just decided to map out the entire Tabantha Region. I fought the hinox, both guardians, and the three talus, registered the seven shrines and the tower, and found as many of the koroks as I could before even considering going into Rito Village proper. Marked them all here on my slate.” Wild scrolled to the correct spot on his slate and shoved it in Sky’s face. “Then I did the same thing with the Hebra Region right after I met Teba. And after that I just couldn’t stop. I tore each region apart systematically, one by one, whenever anything happened that reminded me of how much of a failure I must have been. So to run straight towards what’s pressing onto your very soul? I could never, Sky, I could never even imagine it, I’m nothing like you are-”

“No, no nonono, Wild, don’t you dare say that.” Sky pushed Wild’s hand with the slate away and pressed his forehead to Wild’s now, pulling himself up straighter.

“Sky I spent my whole adventure running away from fate and you ran directly to it-”

“I didn’t want to!” Sky burst out. “I _had_ to. There wasn’t a choice for me. Your Hyrule was hurt badly, but it survived!”

“By the skin of its teeth.”

“But it’s ok still! You can wander around and live. I crave that, Wild, all I want to do now is stop and look around at the scenery, take a break and be with my friends and girlfriend; but I couldn’t then and I shouldn’t now and I just- I just- I _hate_ running so, so much and I’m always so, _so_ tired but every time I try to stop and enjoy life it just eats me up inside that I’m wasting time and people are dying and it’s all on me; I have to go now or people will be hurt and-”

Sky’s sobbing. Wild thinks he is too. “Sky, we won, you can relax-”

“No, but you guys-”

“We’re fine, we also dealt with fate pushing us around, we can handle it-”

“You don’t get it-”

“Sky-” Wild’s sentence got cut off by his own weeping constricting his voice. “Sky-”

“It’s all my fault, he cursed me and now you’re all stuck fighting and you’re hurt and it’s my fault, I wasn’t fast enough-”

“ _ **Sky**_.”

Wild’s tone shocked Sky out of crying. He took a moment to also relax a bit. This next sentence had to count. “Sky, if you were faster than a God, I think the weird lizard we’re fighting would be dead already.”

Sky looked at Wild. Wild looked back at Sky with what hopefully was a comforting expression (though honestly, any face that wasn’t sobbing would probably help right now. Wild wondered if he’d stopped the tears running down his face enough).

Sky starts giggling.

“I- you know, Sky, that’s not what I thought you’d do.”

“That’s-” Sky snorts.”That’s the _stupidest_ goddess-damned sentence I’ve ever heard!”

“I-” Actually, Wild realized, that did sound pretty stupid. “Yeah, this situation’s really weird, huh?”

“By Hylia…” Sky chuckled (he’s still wrapped around Wild like a bandage, and Wild doesn’t want to rip him off anytime soon).

Wild smiled. “Seriously, Sky, I’ve met some gods and they’re immortal; the fact that you killed a god at all is insane. You did all that you could. Anything this god did is their own fault.”

Sky gave a softer smile. “Thanks, Wild,” he said, wiping some tears away (Wild wasn’t that stupid though; he knew Sky hadn’t fully forgiven himself. Wild hadn’t either, and something in him knew that neither of them would ever really, truly do it). “You’ve met some gods?”

“Only a few. The Lord of the Mountains I know is a god, then the three dragons are also gods I’m pretty sure.”

“Oh, they stick around? Good to know,” Sky nodded. “I met them while strengthening the Master Sword. Faron’s kinda a bitch though, you know?”

Either these weren’t the same dragons, or they’d gone through some major character developments since Sky’s time (Farosh was the only one that actively shot lightning out at him, so maybe Sky had a point). Something about that made Wild wonder, though.

“Sky, did you have any type of support system not in the sky?”

“Of course I have a support system! There’s the Mogma, they cared enough to help me once. I don’t really talk to them, but they watch me from the shadows. The Kikwi love me when they’re not scared of me, and the Lanayru Robots are cool as long as they’re not dead. Groose helped a ton once he was there and over himself, Zelda was great when she was there and not asleep, the dragons helped a bit, though they’re immortal, probably, so they don’t really count, and Impa really ended up motivating me.”

Wild’s angry now (and he’d definitely been crying; he can feel the wet on his face and neck, too much to just be Sky’s tears), at himself, at fate, at Sky’s absolutely horrible support system (it’s not a support system if they won’t talk to you because they’re running away, spying on you, or dead), and, most usefully right now, at this twisted (original?) Impa character. He looked Sky directly in the eyes.

“Your Impa sounds like a bitch.”

Sky physically reacted to that, pulling slightly away from Wild (he’s still in his embrace though, he notes) and looked at him, shocked. “What? No, she’s really nice and caring!”

“To Zelda, it seemed. But to you? Sky, what she did isn’t ok.”

“She just wanted me to get better.”

“Yeah, you don’t do that by telling someone they suck. That just makes them sad.”

‘It improved my abilities.”

“Sky, you just told me you didn’t sleep until after you defeated Demise. Like I’m stuffed fuller than a roast ostrich with self doubt, but I still _sleep_ , like, not always well, but I _tried_. Impa’s influence wasn’t good.”

Sky did a double take at that. “First of all, you’re wonderful Wild and I love and appreciate you, and secondly, what did your Impa do then?”

“Well, she caught me up with the hundred years I missed and the 17 or so years I forgot, told me what I had to do, a good first step, and that I was the Princess’ last hope. She didn’t tell me I was a failure and horrible lazy person because that’s not what you **do** to motivate someone. Did anyone ever say anything about her treatment of you?”

“...No one ever saw us talk. She’s the first one who actually offered me advice.”

“Admice, shmadvice,” Wild scoffed. “Sky, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from the few memories I've regained about my past life, it’s that negative motivation only destroys people. It doesn’t matter if it works or not, it still irreparably and irreversibly changes them. I’ve seen it happen; I’ve felt its effects. It _hurts_ and it _scars_ and it fully changes how you act. Insults in the name of betterment… It’s one of the only acts I think is irredeemable.”

“...oh,” Sky murmured, barely audible. “...you have friends that don’t do that, right?”

“Yeah. They’re the only reason I was able to take on the Beasts and defeat the Calamity. You have some too, at home, right?”

“Zelda and Groose,” Sky affirmed. His expression then got hard. “When we’re in your Hyrule I want to meet your friends. Zel and Groose are great, but they were either far away or sleeping during my adventure, and... It seems like my other friends weren't really that great. Your friends obviously helped you a lot, and you clearly adore them. I want to be like them. I want to support people like that.”

That stunned Wild. Not the bit about Sky wanting to be a good friend, that practically oozed out of each and every one of the caped hero’s actions. Everything he did served to show how much he cared about the rest of the group, from his soft, assuring words after nightmares to his silent and comforting presence while carving a new figurine out of wood. It was clear in the way he stood, strong, sturdy, but not intimidating; in his smile, inviting but not prying; in his words, not flowery and fancy and not blunt to the point of insult, but the perfect in between; in his soft touches and warm hugs that only came if asked, if necessary. Sky was practically the perfect friend already. The only thing he had to learn was to let others in.

No, Sky’s willingness to learn wasn’t what surprised Wild. Rather, it was Sky’s immediate admiration of his friends. His friends were great but… no, no, they were everything. Wild had run, at first, finding stupid ways to spend his time, defeating monsters that would revive, finding Koroks hidden behind dumb puzzles, creating new dishes for his recipe book, but he’d always come back, and he hadn’t really realized why. He thought it was just him following fate for a while, and maybe it was, somehow, but that reason alone could never have dragged him to Ganon. 

He's gone back to the Rito because of how worried Teba was about the attacks on his people, back to the Gorons due to Yunobo’s ambition and courage, back to the Zora due to Sidon’s kindness and compassion (he’d never had to go back to the Gerudo; he’d met Riju and fallen over himself to make sure her reign went smoothly). He’d gone to defeat Ganon after he’d ~~gossiped with~~ informed Riju about the country for hours, helped Teba teach the young Rito how to prepare their own bows, trained with Yunobo to improve his defensive capabilities, and practiced his swimming skills with Sidon. He’d defeated the Calamity so he could do all that without worrying for their wellbeing, so he could teach Koko more recipes, so he could assist the construction of Tarrey Town, so he could talk to his neighbors and invite them over for dinner. He defeated the Calamity because of and for his friends. They mattered a lot more to him than he’d ever known. He was pretty lucky, he realized, to have them at all.

“Of course you can meet them!” Wild declared. “And Sky?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re a pretty great friend already.”

“...You really think so?”

“Yes, Sky. I know I tend to wander off and do dumb things, and I do it back at home too, but I always come back because I know you guys are all here for me. You, especially, are always there to support us. Just a beacon of calm, of comfort. You’re the only one in the group I feel comfortable just walking up to and hugging.”

“You could hug Twi-”

“No excuses Sky,” Wild reprimanded. “...and I’d have to ask Twi for a hug. Time would glare at me, Legend would shout at me, and everyone else would stab me, Wars and Hy’ out of instinct, and Wind and Four just for fun.”

Sky pursed his lips. “...I think Four would only stab you if you’d angered him earlier. Otherwise he’s in the ‘shout at you’ group with Legend.”

“Ooh, good point.” Wild nodded, smiling. Sky’s shoulders bent in, just a bit, not in the same way as before, Wild thought, but in a more inviting way. Like he’s thanking him, just not verbally. At least, Wild thinks that’s what Sky’s motion means. He’s never been good at body language and all this emotional turmoil and revelation has been making him tired.

Wild swings his arm around Sky’s shoulders, and Sky responds by pulling his sailcloth so it surrounds the two of them (so Wild was right and Sky did wanna say thanks). That’s how they stayed for a bit, just being in each other's company, because that’s all they really needed.

After a good few minutes, Wild shook Sky a bit. “Anyways, long story short, I'm going to have a talk with this Impa once we return to your world.”

“She’s dead.”

“...oh. Ah. Darn. I’ll give her a talking to in the afterlife then.”

“There you guys are!” Came a shout from their left. Wild and Sky looked over to see Warriors and Four emerge from the woods and walk towards them (Warriors limping just a bit still). “You get caught up by something?”

“There were some monsters, but we threw them off the cliff,” Sky smiled.

“Well- your ankle is broken!” Warriors gasped, rushing over so he could review Wild’s icing job. Four walked over more slowly, plodding up to the new cliff edge and looking over it.

“You threw them over the cliff, you said?” Four inquired, cocking his head.

“Yup!” Sky responded.

“Did the rockslide occur before or after you threw them over?” Four smirked.

“Um, they happened at the same time, actually.” Wild grinned as Warriors joined Four in looking over the recently destroyed cliff.

“Did you guys blow it up or something? There’s a crap ton of dust still in the air-”

“I think that rock moved,” Warriors said.

Wild and Sky’s eyes widened as they also hustled forward to look over the cliffside. All four of them (haha, Four of them) eyed the rocks below suspiciously. Sure enough, one was shifting slowly.

“I thought you said that would kill them,” Sky muttered.

“I thought it would!” Wild replied.

“Could they be infected?” Four theorized.

“They could definitely survive a fall like that if they were, just as that dark lizard did before,” Warriors agreed.

“Mine don’t have blood, Sky, did yours have blood?”

“I don’t think it does.”

“It had hands and an eye, how do you not know?”

“The hands were magma and I wasn’t really paying attention to the eye, I was worried about the rest of it!”

“Your evil rocks have magma hands and real eyes?” Four asked, shocked.

“Had, it’s dead I hope.”

“These are mine, anyways,” Wild added, “and they do not have blood... probably.”

“How did you get them buried like that anyways, did you blow up the cliffside with them on it?” Warriors queried incredulously.

Wild and Sky looked at each other, a silent conversation ensuing about who was the better liar. No matter what the correct answer was, Sky lost. “We definitely did not do that.” 

Both Warriors and Four gave the duo Time’s patented Disappointed Stare™ with surprising skill. Wild groaned, getting up. “By Hylia, Sky, that lie sucked.”

“I never said I was _good_ at lying!” Sky objected back, also standing (with a bit of help; Wild wasn’t letting him walk on that ankle).

“To be fair, the actual tone of the lie was fine,” Four commented, hands on his hips, “it’s that you’re both absolutely covered in dust from blowing up the cliff.”

Wild looked Sky up and down, then looked at his own clothes. Four was quite correct.

“So,” Warriors said, “One of you distracted the talus, and the other set up the bombs and blew up the cliffside so it fell down there.”

Sky answered first. “Well-”

“Exactly,” Wild said, taking over to stop Sky from revealing Warrior’s mistake.

Four blinked. “Actually, I don’t wanna know what Warriors got wro-”

“How many were there,” Warriors said blankly.

Again, Sky answered first. “What are you talk-”

“Three,” Wild said, giving up.

Four just sighed. Warriors responded after a long moment. “You know what? Weirdly, _bizarrely_ , I actually get that plan now.”

“You do?” Sky asked.

“Well, the only people healthy enough to fight three talus are you three, Four, and Twi,” Warriors explained. “The cut on my leg’s restricting movement, Legend has a broken arm, Time’s still out, Wind is recovering from a minor concussion still, and Hyrule’s-”

“Asleep, we know,” Four, Sky, and Wild said at the same time (though Wild thought that this conversation sounded familiar).

“So if you had to fight them all at the same time, taking them all out in one go is a good move,” Warriors finished.

“I agree,” Four said, the two smiling at each other (Wild blinked. Did something happen between them?).

“I’m glad you guys approved of my plan too! This is the most approved plan I’ve ever had.” Wild beamed.

Sky looked back at the cliff, a bit concerned. “Did we have- actually, no. Wild, this plan was great and I’m glad I was able to help you with it.”

“No, I’m glad you were here to help me. I wouldn’t have worked without you.”

“No, I wouldn’t have come up with this plan in the first place-”

“Alright, break it up kids,” Warriors interrupted with a chuckle, “stop taking yourselves down to bring the other up.”

“We only do ‘yes, ands’ here,” Four added.

“‘Kids?’ You guys aren't my mom,” Sky joked.

‘I’m older than both of you,” both Warriors and _Four said?!?!_

“We should probably get back anyways,” Four continued (ignoring everyone’s silence in the process), ”Someone has to make dinner and Twilight only ever makes one soup. It’s a good soup, but I don’t feel like it tonight.”

“...Chicken curry?”

“Sounds great!” Four smiled, walking away. “I’m going to make sure we know the quickest way back to camp.”

“You wouldn’t be much help carrying Sky back anyways,” Warriors smirked.

“I’d make you carry two people back but I don’t feel like hurting Wild,” Four shot back from the woods.

Wild, Warriors, and Sky shared a silent moment. Warriors talked first. “I’ve got the height advantage, so I’ll help Sky. You take watch-”

“Is he really older than us?” Wild asked.

“He can’t be,” Sky frowned as Warriors pulled Sky’s arm over his shoulders. “He has to have some growth left in him, right? At least to Legend and Hyrule’s height?”

“He sounded really confident about it, though,” Wild pondered. “What do you think, Wars?”

Warriors thought for a moment as he started walking Sky back to camp. “I don’t know if he’s lying or not. What I do know is that I appreciate the guts it takes to say that.”

“Camp’s this way!” Four called from completely in the woods.

Warriors corrected his direction. “If there’s one thing Four has, it’s guts.” Wild hardly hears his murmur of, “Takes guts to stand up to me when I’m pissed.”

The walk back to camp was shorter than expected and completely void of any events.When the trio made their way into camp, they were immediately approached by an excited Wind.

“Oh my fucking GODDESSES, thank fuck you’re back!” Wild declared, running up to them. “If I had to eat pumpkin soup for dinner I would’ve gone and killed some rocks for fun.”

“Wind, _please_ , you have a concussion, you have to _sit down_ ,” Twilight sighed with his head in his hands.

“Let him live, Twi,” Time said.

“Old man, you _also have a concussion_ , you have no leg to stand on.”

“Sorry for the hold up,” Sky said, as Wild started checking the fire (it was a star fire, he’d taught the group well). “Wild and I ran into some talus and took them out.”

“We found them sitting at the cliffside watching their handiwork,” Warriors commented, helping Sky sit down.

“Your ankle looks real bad,” Legend commented from across camp, lowering his book. “There’s like half a red potion and brace in my bag you can use. It’s over nearish to War’s stuff.”

Four walked over to get the medical supplies, eying Legend and snorting. Wild, in the middle of setting up his cooking station (including the cones to keep people away), looked over to see that Legend could not move due to the extremely asleep Hyrule curled and resting softly on his chest.

“Softy,” Warriors laughed, settling next to Wind (to stop him from running around with a concussion). Four joined as he returned with the medical supplies for Sky.

Legend scoffed. “Unlike you, I’m a bitch, not an asshole. I’m not gonna wake him up until dinner’s ready.”

“ _I’m_ not an asshole!”

Warriors’ and Legend’s argument continued until dinner was ready, at which point they stopped to wake Hyrule up without scaring him (an ordeal; the traveler was prone to stabbing upon wakeup).

It was halfway through dinner when Warriors seemed to realize something. “Hey, you guys said you fought Wild’s Stone Talus right?”

“Yup!” Sky replied between bites of curry.

“The type that hides underground and jumps up to surprise you?”

“Yeah,” Wild concurred.

Warriors eyes narrowed in suspicion. Four picked up where he left off. “So what you’re saying is you could have ignored them and walked away instead of fighting three at the same time.”

“Wait, you fought three?” Legend asked.

“Of course they fought three by themselves, of fucking course they did,” Twilight muttered.

The entire camp turned to look at Wild and Sky. Wild took a large bite of curry and glanced at Sky, who sighed. “I realized that earlier but decided not to mention it. You seemed so happy about your plan.”

“We could have fought them as a whole team!” Warriors retorted, “Those monsters can literally not come and chase us. They’re giant earth moving rocks, they cannot sneak or move at any speed that would be a threat.”

Wild swallowed. “We were gonna have to kill them eventually.”

“We really didn’t want anyone to get crushed,” Sky affirmed.

Warriors looked like he was going to explode. Four elbowed him, and quietly said “It’s not worth it. Just let them be.”

Warriors exhaled, and softly replied, “Yeah, I was coming to that conclusion too.” Out loud, he said, ”Well, you’ve already done it, so don’t do it again. Just come and tell us about the threat so we can decide what to do together.”

“Ok!” Sky grinned.”Wild, this curry is really good. Can you teach me how to cook? I think my friends at home would love this type of meal.”

“Of course! We can start tomorrow night?”

“Sounds great!” 

Wild smiled, and the night continued on. This group wasn’t perfect, Wild didn’t think any group could be, but it was still warm and nice. He enjoyed being here, and looking at the rest of the group, he was pretty sure they all did too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhhh it's done! Thanks Ace on the LU discord for beta-ing and also everyone else on the Discord for being really supportive and giving great advice! i love you all :)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been in the works since April lol. I like how it came out though!
> 
> Thank you to Ace on the LU discord for beta-ing and Attic and Jay for suggesting last names for Wars!!!
> 
> Get ready for Sky and wild bonding next chapter :)


End file.
